Tumble and Fall
by uphill09
Summary: When Gwen breaks up with Peter, she unwittingly leaves MJ to pick up the pieces. MJ x Peter, The Amazing Spider-Man movie universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Tumble and Fall **

* * *

MJ is sitting listlessly in front of her window fan, listening to the sounds of the city swell from twenty floors below, when the fan abruptly grinds to a halt and every whirr and hum of the dorm sputters into silence.

"What the _fuck_," one of the boys living above her yells. Another one chimes in: "God _damn _it."

MJ sighs, already feeling the intolerable heat creeping under the seams of her tank top, damp and heavy in the mess of her red curls. She isn't all that surprised about the blackout. She's lived in New York long enough to anticipate when the city's power grid can't handle the heat, and whatever higher power of Manhattan decides to shut it down. She figures the boys upstairs did not have the same expectations.

She stretches out on her little twin bed, kicking off the comforter with the heel of her foot. It's too hot to even fathom moving right now. She knows at some point she will have to extricate herself from the mattress, stick her head into a cold shower and _attempt_ to look semi-professional in her black waitressing top and pants (black—_black!_—she is going to roast to death out there), but right now there is something delicious about the laziness of flopping on the mattress, letting her eyelids slide shut and the heat radiate through her pores.

The truth is she hates this part of the summer. It's too early for the semester to start, too late for any of the fun parts of summer like the Fourth of July and summer sales and impromptu weekends to the Hamptons with her best friend Gwen's family. Now the days are just sticky and lonely and slow.

Well, she supposes there's always Peter. But ever since high school it's been a little—well, not weird, but definitely different, since he's been dating Gwen. Peter will always be her best friend but it's not like they can tell each other everything the way they used to, because MJ has _very_ little interest in hearing about sweaty nerd sex.

And besides that, all he's capable of doing lately is mooning over Gwen, especially now that Gwen has left for London for the semester. If MJ has to hear Peter whine about it one more time she might just duct tape his mouth shut—it's not like _she_ isn't going to miss Gwen, too, because really, what other _girl_ friends does she have, but Peter has taken all the pissing and moaning to an extraordinary level.

Okay, okay. They're super in love or whatever and MJ knows she should be sympathetic. But Peter was fine for the first seventeen years without Gwen, was he not? So why is it completely unthinkable spending six months apart? It's not like he doesn't have anyone else to hang out with, it's not like MJ is going anywhere.

At least Gwen is finally going to London. MJ has known Gwen since they were fourteen and it was all she ever talked about, was studying abroad, going to one of OsCorp's London facilities for a semester. And even though Gwen has always been the more practical of the two, there were a few uncertain weeks after Gwen got into the program that she actually looked like she might not go, all on account of Peter.

MJ had only balked at that. She can't imagine ever making major life decisions based on a stupid _boy_.

Not that Peter is just a stupid boy, or at least he doesn't mean to be when he is. It just seems laughable to MJ that Gwen could be that infatuated with someone. Maybe it's just that MJ is the only one with the bird's eye view on what's happening: she grew up with Peter—dorky, mumbly, goofy Peter, who was perpetually late for class and always managing to shove his foot in his mouth. And MJ always knew Gwen as the sensible, practical type, whose metaphorical ducks weren't just in rows, but color-coded and alphabetized.

MJ just didn't see it coming, when the two of them hit it off. But it's been two years so she supposes the joke is on her.

She hoists herself up lazily, intending to buck up and get into the shower, when there's a knock on her door.

"Who is it?"

She is answered by the sound of the doorknob twisting open. She sees a familiar forearm and a frayed watchstrap before she sees Peter, and she scrambles to throw the covers back on.

"I'm sorry, I missed the part where I said _come in_," she says caustically. She spots her shorts on the floor and points. "Toss me those, would you?"

As he shuts the door behind him and crosses the room she doesn't look at him, opting to stare at the window fan. The thing is, at the end of the day, she's still a girl and he's still a boy, and ever since puberty—or at least, ever since _Gwen_—MJ has been a little self-conscious, a little careful around Peter. Not that Peter has ever noticed or paid any attention to her womanly parts, but it seems inappropriate to remind him that they exist.

But Peter takes too long to cross the room, his footsteps uncharacteristically heavy and slow. She knows something is wrong before she even looks up and when she does she feels her heart constrict in her chest.

"Peter?"

He's crying. Not just crying, but the lip quivering, bloodshot in the eyes crying, the kind of state she has only seen him in twice: once when they were kids and her mother died, and once a few years ago when his Uncle Ben was shot.

Her immediate thought is of his Aunt May. She leaps up off the bed, all sense of propriety vanished, feeling a panic swelling and stealing her breath. "Hey," she says, stumbling on her way over to him, her legs rubbery and coltish, out of her command. "Hey, hey," she says, her hands reaching up for his face, forcing him to look at her.

His eyes lock on hers like a drowning person desperate for air. He opens his mouth and she braces herself, waiting for him to tell her, assuming it was a stroke or a heart attack or something similarly unexpected, but all that comes out is a strangled, blubbering gasp of air. She feels tears starting to well up in her own eyes, feels herself dissolving with him—they grew up together, she has always been like this, her emotions easily just an extension of his.

"Peter?" she asks, her voice watery and uncertain.

She takes a step forward and he sinks into her, all six foot something of him hunching over, burying his face into her hair. A gasping, shudder of a sob escapes him, and she can feel his chest caving in with the effort to release it.

She rubs her palm on his back, her eyes wide open, still waiting. "Peter," she says again, because she can't stand it for one more second. "What … what on earth—"

The words rip out of him in a voice she hardly even recognizes: "It's _Gwen_."

MJ releases him instantly, clamping a hand to her mouth. "What happened? Is she okay?"

Peter recovers himself just enough to say, "She—she _ended_ it."

"She—what?"

He shakes his head, burying his face in his fingers. He won't say it again.

MJ stands there, still shaking in her tank top and underwear. "What the _fuck_, Peter," she exclaims, spitting with anger.

His head snaps up in momentary shock.

"What the _fuck!_" she repeats. She points a quivering, accusatory finger at him. "Jesus, Peter, I thought someone was _dead_."

Now he has the nerve to look indignant. She can count the number of times Peter has actually been riled up in front of her on one hand, but there is something different about it this time, something stirring and unreal.

"I love her," says Peter, as if he has to convince her, as if she cannot possibly fathom his pain. "I—I was going to ask her to marry me, and she—she—"

"Oh, Jesus," MJ interrupts him, backing away and sinking into her mattress. The adrenaline surge is almost enough to make her dizzy. She can't believe he stalked in here with his tears and his angst and almost gave her a fucking _heart attack_ over nothing. "You're both alive, aren't you?"

Peter is staring at her, in a mixture of bewilderment and fury. Maybe she is being too harsh, but it's his fault, too, for being so melodramatic. Honestly, they were twenty. It's not like dating at twenty meant happily ever after with two kids a dog and a white picket fence. It's not like dating at twenty deserves big, gut-wrenching _sobs_ in her dorm room.

"I shouldn't have come here," Peter says bitterly.

MJ sighs, pushing her sweat-mopped curls off of her forehead, trying to slow the slam of her heart in her chest. "Look," she says, in a reconciliatory tone. "I'm sure—it's like—she's going away to London, she wants to be free, have a little fun, is all. She'll come home and you guys will work it out."

Peter shakes his head, his teeth curled over his lower lip and grinding. "Gwen's not like that. She wouldn't just … she meant it. It's over."

MJ swallows hard. She doesn't understand what the big deal is, but she really is trying. It's just that she has never felt this way about someone, enough to cry when they left her, or at least nobody's ever cared about her that way. She's had plenty of boyfriends and more flings than she is necessarily proud of, but not a single tear has ever been shed for one of them.

Honestly, more than anything she is annoyed with Gwen, who for whatever reasons just left a huge mess in her wake for MJ to clean up. That, and at the end of the day, MJ supposes that her deepest loyalties still lie with Peter. They were next-door neighbors ever since MJ could remember, best friends since the day they met waiting for the bus that first day of kindergarten, and no amount of ranting about tampon brands or staying up late watching _Friends_ reruns with a pint of ice cream could undermine that.

Finally she just shrugs at him. She doesn't know what else to do. "I'm sorry," she says.

"I've got to go to London," he says, staring at the floor, more talking to himself than to her. "But I _can't_."

"Broke?"

"Yes, and—" Peter stops short, shaking his head. "I just—I can't leave New York," he mumbles.

As the blood surging through her veins starts to settle, she becomes painfully aware of her lack of pants. She is about to walk the few steps to retrieve them when Peter looks up at her and asks in a tortured voice, "Tell me—did she say anything to you? Did you know that she was going to—that she wanted to end things?"

MJ crosses her arms over her chest. "No. She never said a word to me about it."

"It just came out of nowhere."

"Doesn't it always?" she asks flippantly, grabbing for her shorts. She shoves her feet in the holes and shimmies them up onto her hips, aware that Peter is staring at her now, his eyes completely blank so that he's staring without actually looking at her. She is both relieved and annoyed at the same time, securing the zipper with maybe a little too much force.

His eyes are welling up again, his words a little less distinct. "What am I supposed to do?" he asks, looking more helpless, more pathetic than she has ever seen him in fifteen years of friendship.

There is a callous part of her that wants to roll her eyes and dismiss him. He has barely given her the time of day for the past two years, except to talk about Gwen, and duck in to invite her over for dinner whenever he went to Queens to see his aunt. Ever since the two of them started dating she felt like chopped liver. And it hasn't bothered her so much because she's been busy, too—with auditions, of course, and schoolwork, and her admittedly large and occasionally questionable social circle. It's not like she's ever lonely or left out.

It's just that when Peter met Gwen he changed so drastically and permanently that MJ felt like she never had time to catch up. He went off to some place she couldn't reach him, some place she couldn't understand, some realm of feeling or some stage of life that she either wasn't prepared for herself, or might never have a chance at.

And now he's here. Reaching out to her again, giving her the opportunity to be his friend, the way they were back then. So really, she should be glad, that he still thinks of her this way—that they're still close enough that he can show up bawling in her dorm room at two in the afternoon, that she may not be the person he cares about most, but she is a close second.

"I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong," she says. She guides him over to the mattress, sits him down and says, "Just give her some time."

He allows her to move him, leaning against the bedpost and shutting his eyes. She feels the pressure of his shoulder against hers—she normally wouldn't notice, but it's so excruciatingly humid that she feels the warmth of him like an oven. She's about to scoot away from him when he rests his head on the top of hers, the way he used to do when they were little, in the brief span of time where they were old enough that he was taller than she was, but not so old that it was weird when she slept over at his house.

He still has that clean smell to him, some kind of soap or laundry detergent that she will forever associate with Peter Parker.

"She'll come to her senses," MJ says, reaching out for his hand. She finds it, laces her fingers between his, and squeezes.

His voice is barely audible, just a rumble in his chest. "What if she doesn't?"

MJ purses her lips. She's no good at this. There are some parts of friendship she's really great at, if it means showing up to stuff or being supportive or running out to do someone a favor, but this part—this part where she is supposed to surrender a part of herself, when she is supposed to acknowledge someone else's weakness and build them back up again—she just doesn't know how. It comes out awkward and stilted and insincere.

"Then …" she starts, but she has no idea where she's going with this. She feels her body tense, already anticipating her own failure, already disappointed in herself for it.

Peter shifts just slightly. She feels the weight of his head leave hers, feels him slouch into the mattress until his face is level with hers. He is waiting for her to say something and she is completely at a loss.

"Then I guess …" she tries again, and then Peter untangles his fingers from her and interrupts.

"Mary Jane?" he asks.

He has said her name thousands of times. He has called it across playgrounds, whispered it between their bedroom windows, shouted it over the blare of her headphones, but he has _never_ said it like this.

_What_, she's about to ask him, but then her eyes meet his and she is paralyzed by it. His gaze is at once so steady and so wretched, that she cannot look away, compelled in a bizarre, heated way that she cannot explain.

Suddenly it's too quiet. No televisions, no air conditioners, no footsteps pattering around on the upper floors. It feels like they are the only two people left in the universe, like they are in some kind of vacuum and there is nothing left to consider, nothing left to fill up the void but each other.

She is at once uncomfortable and overly-aware of his stare, and she should squirm away, because she has seen this look before. This is the desperation of a boy on the rebound, of someone who has nothing left to lose; MJ has dealt with plenty of boys with this same look in their eyes, but that's different, because she never cared about any of them. They weren't _Peter_.

"Mary Jane," he says, his voice cracking, his face leaning towards her.

She knows what's going to happen, probably knows before he does. She has every opportunity to pull back, plenty of time to stop him.

His lips are blazing from the heat, wet and warm and pressed against hers. She sinks into it, her skin buzzing with the unexpected pleasure of it, her eyes widening and then sliding shut, giving in to it without thinking.

Peter pulls away, just barely. His face is so close to hers that she can still feel his breath.

"I'm sorry," he breathes.

These are the crucial few seconds, she knows, that will change everything about their friendship forever. She is aware that this is not okay. That he is in a state of weakness, and to some degree she is taking advantage of that, and that once this happens, they can never go back to the way things once were—that this is one of those all or nothing situations and she has always, always, _always_ been the girl who ended up with _nothing_—but right now there is something primal and startling stirring in her gut, and it has far more command over her than the rest of her body does.

His eyes are weary and hopeless. She shuts hers, and doesn't answer him. If he needs comforting, she will give it to him, in the only way she knows how. It wouldn't be the first bridge she ever burned.

She leans in and initiates another kiss, and then just like that, all bets are off. The kiss deepens and he presses a palm to the exposed skin of her stomach, reaching under her tank top. Her body arches instinctively and she moans out loud, writhing in the heat of his touch, and then he is so suddenly on top of her that she can't suppress the gasp of surprise that escapes her.

He stares down at her, his eyes trailing her body hungrily, desperately, in a way nobody ever has before. She hardly recognizes him in this state, but there is a hum in her bones, an ache and a desire that overpower every other sensation, and she can't bring herself to care.

She reaches forward, for the seams of his shirt, and pulls it up over his head. She hasn't seen him in this state since they were children—she has no way to anticipate the lean ripple of muscle of his chest, slick with the heat of the city, flushed with want.

"Peter," she gasps, and then he crushes his mouth on hers, stealing her breath.

Every nerve and fiber of her skin is throbbing with urgency—she wants every part of him, wants him in a way she has never wanted anything. She has always been so in control in situations like this, always the one who initiates the terms and just how much of herself she is willing to give, but he has unraveled her into a thoughtless, beautiful nothing.

His hands slide up her shirt, cupping her breasts. She inhales with a sharp and astonishing pleasure, her legs pulsing as she straddles them around his torso, closing the distance between them. She can feel his want, feel it warm and hard against her stomach.

Her fingers fumble clumsily at the zipper of his jeans. She has never been this undone, never been so raw and impatient and unpracticed. He leans down and presses his mouth to her neck and sucks the skin, and she groans with pleasure, unable to maintain any semblance of composure the way she always has. He travels further downward, his lips grazing down to her collarbone, to the curve of her chest, arching up to meet him.

"Please," she hears herself, senseless and begging. She doesn't know this girl, but Peter obeys her, his hands calloused and strong under her hips, tugging down her shorts in one swift and freeing motion.

He takes a moment to look up at her, and she is almost startled to see Peter there, to see this boy she knows so well that she can explain every childhood scar and finish every other thought that tumbles out of his head.

He is waiting for her. For some kind of permission, for some kind of consent.

Even this slight interruption is excruciating, more than she can bear. "_Please_," she breathes again, and then he is inside her, all of him, plunging to some unfathomable and beautiful depth that awakens her, renders her impossibly _alive_.

Together they rock, urgently, breathlessly, her body shuddering as it tries to process the sensation of him. She is mindless now, saying things without comprehension, his name on her lips over and over and over. It is the stifling summer heat, the smell of his sweat and his want, the crush of his lips and his unshaven stubble on her cheek; she feels her body clench, giving in to a demanding and sensational oblivion, and cries out as he tips her over the edge.

A moment later she hears him gasp out above her in release, and in those few seconds he is staring straight into her eyes, with such reverence, such astonishment, that she feels an unfamiliar kind of satisfaction. They are just staring and breathing, skin against skin, caught in this desperately fragile moment; then he slips out of her and she gasps at the sudden emptiness, the hum and the ache of her bones on the mattress.

An entire minute passes, both of their backs sweaty and pressed into the sheets, panting in the aftermath. She is scared to turn her head, scared to look at him. She wants to freeze this moment in time, before the regret, before the _holy shit what did I just do_ sets in, but just then Peter shifts his weight and shatters everything: "Oh, _god_."

Mary Jane sits up abruptly, already off of the bed and scrambling to find her clothes. Her cheeks are blazing, her traitorous heart sinking into her stomach like lead. "That was really something," she says, trying to sound cool, trying to sound unaffected, trying her hardest not to look at him.

"MJ," he says. "I—I don't know what I was—"

"Catch," she says, tossing him his shirt. She swallows hard, her eyes stinging. Oh, for god's sake, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just _sex_.

But he's staring at her, open mouthed and horrified, still slick with evidence. "I have no idea how that happened."

She rolls her eyes. "Do you really need a sex ed lesson or can you just run a google search and call it a day? I've got a shift I'm late for," she says, and what she's really thinking to herself is _get out, get OUT_, because if he doesn't leave right now she's afraid she is going to crack right in front of him.

He tugs back on his boxers and jeans. "I just—we should talk about this," he says, in a strained voice, that indicates to her that he definitely does _not_ want to talk about this, and in fact she thinks it is better for the both of them if they just never talk about it again.

"It's fine," she says, waving him off, heading for the door. She opens it, and all but gestures for him to leave. "It is what it is. It's fine."

"MJ—"

"I'm not going to tell Gwen, if that's what you're scared of."

She doesn't mean for the words to sound so bitter, but they must, because Peter's eyebrows lift in surprise. "No—I wasn't, that's not what I meant."

Her facial muscles feel stiff, like they can't obey the signals coming from her brain. "I'll call you tomorrow," she says, "but really, I'm late. Skedaddle."

She is almost disappointed at how easily he goes, with an apologetic good-bye and a last lingering gaze over his shoulder before his footsteps fade down the hall. She shuts the door behind her and feels her eyes fill up with reluctant, shaming tears. She has always had a knack for wrecking things—hasn't she left behind a mess wherever she goes?—but she always thought of Peter as untouchable, sacred, something that could never be taken from her.

It only figures that she'd find a way to wreck that, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tumble and Fall **

* * *

MJ wakes up in the middle of the night, sticky with sweat and humiliation. She reaches out, slapping a hand on the mattress perched beside hers, and then she remembers with a disheartening lurch that Gwen is _gone_—and even if she weren't, this is one problem MJ can never, ever discuss with her.

Instead she reaches out for her cell phone. The screen lights up the room in one blinding flash against the darkness. Without reaching for the lamp she can tell from the eerie silence of the building that they're still in the blackout.

Her fingers punch the numbers clumsily, thoughtlessly. The phone rings twice, three times, four, and then terribly, mercifully, she reaches the voicemail box.

"Hey, Peter," she says, her voice rough from sleep. She opens her mouth to say something more, curling her knees into her chest and holding them there with her arm. She feels grimy. Dirty. _Bad_. She is not used to this feeling, and she doesn't like it one bit. "Call me back," she finally settles on, hanging up the phone and tossing it to the other side of the bed.

* * *

The next morning she has the early shift at work. The Bitch Shift, she has affectionately dubbed it. It's only pissed off businessmen and confused tourists who trickle in and either linger way too long or want service way too fast, not that it matters because either way she makes almost nothing in tips.

She's waiting at the service window and trying her best not to fall asleep when she feels a quick, sharp smack on her ass.

"What the—"

"Hey, kid."

MJ rolls her eyes, extending one of her hands to shove at Harry's chest. "Jesus, Osborn," she says, grabbing an omelet order from the cook. "That's one hell of a wake up call."

"Thought you might be working today," he says, his face all one broad, sloppy grin and mischief in his eyes.

She flicks her bangs out of her eyes. "So what? You decided to slum it at New York's greasiest diner? No offense," she says, eyeing the Armani suit and pristinely shined loafers, "but you're a little bit out of your element."

Harry follows her to the table she's serving, something he knows she hates, because whenever he hangs around like this her boss gets totally pissed, not to mention the customers tend not to tip as well. But her boss is out on another smoking break (read: _pot_ smoking break) and the Asian couple doesn't even look up as she sets the plate down, so it doesn't really matter this time.

Besides, she has other things on her mind this morning. For instance, the ominously silent cell phone in her apron pocket.

"Don't you know, kid? Brownouts are the great equalizer of Manhattan."

"Oh no! Did poor little rich boy have to go without power for all of five seconds before the generator kicked in?"

"I was in the middle of an _extremely _important game of solitaire, with like two percent battery life on my phone. This is _not _a laughing matter." Harry grabs a piece of bread from one of the baskets MJ is supposed to offer her admittedly mostly nonexistent customers. She would swat his hand away but it's hot and after a sleepless night she's too tired to care. "I missed the cards doing that fancy _floop floop floop_ thing."

She offers him a wry smile, as she refills someone's coffee mug. "Your life is riveting."

The truth is, she likes Harry. She likes his wicked, sometimes insensitive sense of humor, likes his cockiness, likes his easy and uncomplicated way of looking at the world—and yes, she likes the way he looks at her. Sure, it may have been _years_ since they last dated, and hell, they were sixteen—babies, practically—but there is still something undeniably charming about Harry, and every now and then she catches his eyes lingering on her in a not-so-platonic fashion.

The problem is, the two of them are way too alike. Flighty, uncommitted, maybe a little too wild for their own good. It's not that MJ ever had any trouble being faithful. She just had a hell of a lot of trouble carving out time for herself, let alone anybody else, and dating just plain felt like a chore.

"Hey, what are you up to when you get off?"

"Depends," she says, setting the coffee pot back down on the burner. "What are you proposing?"

Harry raises his eyebrows. "Remember that time we got plastered on Coney Island?"

"Sure I do. Can't say the same for you," she remarks, remembering how he hurled on the teacups and got them escorted out of the park.

"Exactly," he says, brash and unembarrassed. "Round two?"

She should take him up on the offer. Take her mind off of this. She has no reason to feel—whatever it is she is feeling right now, but she could use the distraction.

"Rain check?" she asks instead.

Harry pouts overdramatically. "Aw, c'mon, kid. Don't wuss out on me."

"I need a nap." The front door chimes open and her boss walks in. "And you need to leave."

"Ah," says Harry. "Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me." Then he winks at her and is out the door before it shuts behind her boss.

As soon as he's gone she feels her shoulders slump, feels her face go slack with the usual non-effort she puts into the Bitch Shift. While her boss is still shuffling in, reeking of weed, she fishes her phone out of her apron and checks the screen.

No messages. Not a word from one Peter Parker. An unbidden imagine of yesterday afternoon springs into her mind, his eyes wide and his forehead slick with sweat, hovering in the inches of air above her.

She scrunches her eyes shut as if she can will it away. This is going to be one hell of a long day.

* * *

As soon as she gets off work she calls Peter again, and it goes straight to voicemail.

"Really, Pete?" she snaps into the phone. "This is getting kind of ridiculous. Call me back."

She shoves the phone into the pocket of her uniform, not even caring how ridiculous it looks. It's not that she and Peter are normally in constant touch with each other, but wouldn't yesterday at least call for a 'hey, promise we're still friends and I'm going to try to my hardest not to make this ridiculously awkward for the rest of our lives' kind of text?

When she gets to her dorm the elevator is busted, so she has to climb up twenty sweltering hot flights of stairs still clad in her stupid waitressing pants and button-up. By the time she reaches her floor she is essentially mopped with sweat, her hair tangled and sticking to the nape of her neck and her clothes plastered to her in an unsightly fashion. She shoves her whole body weight against the door to get it open, sprawling into the hallway.

Peter is standing at her door, looking sheepish and pale.

"Hey," she says, pushing her hair out of her face, feeling her cheeks start to blaze. Of course she just left an awkward voicemail and now he's going to think she's berserk when he finds it later. "Um—hi."

"Hey," he says, doing this little wave with only a few of his fingers. "I wasn't sure what time you got off."

"About now," she says.

She reaches him at the door and then there is the most awkward, excruciating pause she has ever experienced. He's just standing there, one arm roped around his skateboard, the other clutching to the strap of his old beat-up messenger bag. Is she supposed to say something here, or is he? Is somebody supposed to apologize? Are they supposed to pretend yesterday didn't even happen?

Why the hell can't she just open her mouth and _speak?_

This is different, and decidedly unsettling. She has known Peter practically since before she could read, and now she's standing here in her hallway, staring up at him and that goofy, hesitant crook of a smile and feeling—well—_shy_.

"I called you last night," she blurts, because she can't stand one more second of it.

He nods. His eyes are underlined with purple rings. She is not the only one who didn't sleep last night.

"Can I come in?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, her voice rising about an octave above its normal pitch. "I mean, yeah, I just gotta—move, here, I gotta unlock the door."

"Oh, right, sorry," he says, jumping out of her way.

She unlocks the door with an uncharacteristic sloppiness, shoving it open with her foot when it won't quite give right away. Peter follows her in and instead of sitting on the chair or one of the beds like he normally would, he stands right in the middle of the room, still holding onto his things, like he is ready to bust out of there at the drop of a hat.

"Hold on," she says. "I'm gonna change."

She grabs the first pair of shorts she sees, and an old shirt from a barbeque place in Queens that his Uncle Ben used to take them to. Normally she would tell Peter to turn around, and she trusts that he still would, but there's something blatantly inappropriate about that old strategy now that they've, well, fucked.

She props the bathroom door open so they can still talk. "Busy day?" she calls back.

"Um—yeah, I guess. You?"

"Harry stopped by the diner."

"Harry's back from Austria?"

"Huh?" MJ looks at the indistinct mess of curls on her head and roots through the drawers for a hair tie. She finds one that Gwen left behind and figures she won't care—besides, Gwen owes her one, after leaving the Ginormous Mess of Peter Parker for her to mop up. "I didn't realize he'd been abroad," she says, swooping her hair up into a sweaty ponytail.

"Yeah. For a few days, at least."

"Huh," she says conversationally, emerging from the bathroom to find Peter standing in that exact same oafish, uncomfortable way he was a minute before. She gestures across the room. "Uh, you can sit down."

He mistakes her intentions for the mattress, and she doesn't miss the subsequent cringe. "I don't know if that's … such a good idea."

For a moment she balks at him, disbelieving. What, does he really think that yesterday was _her doing?_ Like she's going to sit him down and jump him, poor little unsuspecting Peter Parker, like _she's_ the one to blame?

"Oookay," she says carefully, not even bothering to conceal the offense she has taken.

"It's just that yesterday—"

"Oh, I was there," she says, putting a hand on her hip and looking him square in the eye, just daring him to put any of the responsibility of it on her.

Peter stares at her for a moment, like a deer in headlights. "I'm sorry," he says, and then he opens his mouth like he's going to say something more, but then thinks the better of it. He searches her face, and she knows she's not giving him much to go on while she's just staring at him like this, so he tries again: "I'm sorry."

"Sorry that it happened? Or sorry it was me?"

"I—" Peter lifts a hand to the back of his neck, craning uncomfortably, gnawing on his lip. "No, jeez, MJ, it's just—under the circumstances—"

"Oh, relax," she says, laughing. It comes out biting. She sits down on Gwen's desk chair, trying to seem casual, trying to seem breezy and in control. "I get it, Parker. You were upset, you were confused, you came over here and _bam_, there I was, a convenient receptacle for all your angst and despair." She's staring at her toes, painted a bright and cheerful yellow, chipping in a few places. "Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Sound about right?"

She doesn't want to be making excuses for him, doesn't want to be the one taking control of this situation that is, in her opinion, completely his fault. But there is a part of her that is so desperate for everything to go back to normal that she finds herself all too willing to do it.

Peter finally sits in the other chair, his shoulders sagging, looking possibly even wearier than she is. Maybe she shouldn't be giving him such a hard time about this. He did just get his heart broken.

"First off," he says, looking up at her, "I hope you don't _ever_ think for a second—that I think of you that way. I mean, as someone who's just—like—a _convenient receptacle_." His expression is so earnest, so guilt-ridden and apologetic, that she has two very irrational, competing desires to instantly forgive him for everything, everything he's done or is doing or will do to her, and to deck him. "You're way too important to me for that. You know that, right?"

She swallows hard, curling her toes against the mild cool of the tiles. "Yeah. Same to you."

He takes in another breath, and she's relieved, knowing that he isn't quite finished. "You and me, we're just—"

"Best friends—" she interrupts.

"—_way _too different," he finishes.

Their eyes snap up to meet each other. He's right, of course. They are way too different. But she wasn't talking in terms of them having a _relationship_ or something. She would never be stupid enough to do that with Peter Parker, and it's insulting that he was implying that she would. She's not some desperate high school girl who feels the compulsive need to date and/or marry every guy she has slept with. She doesn't need to justify her actions with stupid shit like that.

But that doesn't mean that it's a nice thing to hear, either. Hell, she might never date Parker, but she would never sit here and say that to his face. Even she has a little more tact than that.

"Oh," she says. The twinge of hurt is so acute and unexpected that she has to look away from him.

"And yeah, we're best friends," Peter recovers.

She purses her lips. It's taken care of. They've said all they need to say. She should feel relieved, but instead she feels an inexplicable disappointment, the kind of let-down she hasn't felt since she left home after high school.

She glances at Peter, trying to glean any other lingering things he might have to say. She thinks he might be staring at her, but he's looking past her, to the neatly arranged files and supplies that Gwen left on her desk, to a little blue frame with a picture of Gwen and Peter, all grins at high school graduation. MJ remembers taking that picture. MJ remembers framing the shot, snapping the button and wondering when she suddenly became so decidedly second best to both Gwen _and _Peter that neither of them thought to ask for a picture with her in it.

Then she rolls her eyes at herself, tilting the chair back. It's not some big sob story. They're all still close, and besides, Peter and Gwen are broken up with now. There's no point to being hung up on getting left in the dust.

And Peter is miserable. She's supposed to be supportive, she's supposed to help him, not sit here and be all passive-aggressive about things that can't be changed.

"Has she called … or anything?" she asks carefully.

Peter hangs his head. "No."

"Oh." It's clear that he wants to talk about it, but she wishes she hadn't asked. "Sorry."

"I tried calling her a bunch of times last night," he says, staring at his phone, as if it might magically come to life after all this time.

MJ doesn't mention the two calls that she made to him, or the voicemails she left. She figures in the grand scheme of things she is relatively unimportant to him right now.

"Maybe she's just settling in. I mean, it's a new country and all."

She can tell by the way the skin between his brows is creasing that he doesn't believe this idea in the slightest. "Maybe," he says. He stands up from the chair unexpectedly, crossing the room with purpose, stopping awkwardly when he reaches the wall. He turns to MJ and says in a much more present voice, "I just don't understand. It's like—I don't know. It doesn't feel _real_."

He is speaking in clichés like he's the first person to ever utter them, to ever experience heartbreak. But she knows Peter better than this. He is not the type to wallow or feel sorry for himself, or the type to seek out comfort, so if he's doing it now he must be in a bad way.

So she bucks up and decides once and for all to get over herself. So she and Peter had sex. It wasn't about her and it still isn't; it was timing, bad timing, and she just happened to be there when he snapped. Even Peter is capable of weakness. Even soft-hearted, stammering Peter made mistakes.

"Hey," she says. "If Gwen calls me … I'll tell her she's crazy. I'll tell her she's wrong."

Peter's laugh sounds wet and a little snuffly, like he might just start crying again. "Thanks. That's not necessary."

"But really, Peter," she says, softening a bit. "Whatever it is … I'm sure it had nothing to do with you." It feels like pulling teeth to say this to him, but she goes on: "You're a great guy. Anybody can see that. Especially Gwen."

He only smiles distantly, his fingers tightening around the strap of his messenger bag. She can tell he wants to go, and she doesn't want to make him feel like he has to stay here until things feel normal again.

"We should do something later this week. You and me and Harry," she offers, standing up from the chair, prompting him to follow suit.

Peter shrugs. She can tell by the expression on his face that his thoughts are already too far away to reach him. This isn't anything new—Peter's always been like this, living in his own little world, or at least traveling there and back sometimes mid-conversation. It's just that this time there is a sorrow in his eyes that makes her cringe, makes her almost embarrassed for him. She does everything she can to avoid looking this way in front of people that it's hard to see it in anyone else.

"I've got some things to catch up on," he says vaguely. He turns to her. For just a second, he is back. "But you and me—we're okay?"

"Of course," she says, maybe too quickly. She takes a step back from him and says, firmly this time, "Of course, Peter, yeah."

As he says his good-byes and leaves again, there is one haunting, nagging question in the back of her mind, simmering unpleasantly under the surface of her skin. If Peter Parker, the one boy who knows her every fault and strength, the boy who shares half her memories, the boy who knows her better than anyone else—if Peter Parker doesn't want her, then who on earth ever will?


	3. Chapter 3

**Tumble and Fall **

* * *

"This feels like a bad idea," says MJ, standing on the sidewalk in her high heels and a ridiculously tight mermaid dress, clutching her purse against her side.

Harry doesn't look fazed in the slightest. "What?" he says, looking at the rather large line of people snaking out of the entrance of the nightclub. "You said you wanted a night job."

She glances up and down the otherwise bare street. "Yeah, but this place looks totally seedy."

"MJ. Come on. Like I'd take you anywhere _seedy_."

MJ lets out a little hum of suspicion.

"Seriously," says Harry. "I know the guy who owns the place, it's one another one of—what have you been calling us? The trust fund babies. This place is totally upscale and legit, a real throwback. Think 1920s speakeasy."

She raises her freshly-plucked eyebrows at him. "With dancers, apparently?"

"Only the best," says Harry, hooking her elbow with his companionably. He offers her a cheeky smile. "Aw, come on. If you hate it you don't ever have to come back. But give the place a chance. The girls working here are practically rolling in it."

"Rolling in what, exactly?"

"Cash," Harry clarifies, guiding her past all the people in line, who are looking at them in a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. Before MJ can so much as utter another word of protest, he nods at the doorman, who unhinges a velvet rope and ushers them into a dark pit. MJ pockets the fake ID she had been clutching, moist in her palm. When the doors swing open to the club nobody so much as bats an eye.

It is pulsing and loud. She feels like she has been hit with a wall of noise and lights that shine too bright against the darkness, like the place is lit up by stars. She feels a reluctant thrum in her muscles, responding to the music beating like an earthquake into the floor, to the sweat and the carnal heat of bodies in rhythm, flickering in and out of view like so many ghosts.

And then beyond them, the stage, like the sun of this mini universe: blinding in its brilliance, a thousand beams throwing themselves at it at once, making the dancers look like they are only extensions of the light. They are shining and breathtaking and slithering hypnotically, their eyes combing the dance floor, with cool, unaffected siren stares. It hurts to stare at them, but MJ can't look away.

"I can't—I can't—" _I can't do that, _she's starting to explain, because whatever dancing she is able to do will look like a kindergartener's ballet recital compared to this. But just then Harry grabs her hand and all but yanks her through the crowd, and there's too much noise and trying to avoid drunk people for her to get a word out. "Harry!"

And just as quickly as the universe sucks her in, it disappears. They're in a backroom now, and Harry slams the door shut behind them so abruptly that it feels like they've been sucked into a vacuum. MJ breathes a sigh of relief.

"Jesus," she says, laughing. She tugs down the seam of her dress. "What a scene."

"MJ, meet Aaron. He owns the club."

MJ looks up and finds herself face-to-face with a man she can only describe as ridiculously symmetrical. He is perfect-looking—like, literally has perfect features, with a cleft chin and deep-set eyes and a proportional nose, like a Ken doll—but he is somehow not at all attractive at the same time, like he looks like the doll and is every bit as vacuous and empty-headed as Ken, too.

Aaron looks her up and down ostentatiously, lingering on her ass and her chest. MJ puts a hand on her hip, attempting to accentuate features that aren't necessarily there. It isn't her fault she was stuck with the body of a prepubescent boy.

"MJ," says Aaron, extending his hand. "Harry's told me a lot about you."

She takes his hand and shakes it. "You two went to prep school together or something?"

Aaron smirks at her appreciatively. "Yeah, back in the day." He turns to Harry and says, "How did a loser like you end up with a girl like this?"

MJ lets out a wry laugh. "Harry's not my boyfriend."

"Oh yeah?" Aaron asks, the smirk still fresh on his face.

MJ wishes she hadn't said anything. She looks at Harry hesitantly, but Harry has pulled out his phone to text someone. MJ feels her skin prickle uncomfortably. Maybe she doesn't want a night job after all.

"Look," says Aaron, clasping his fingers together, looking almost business-like. "How old are you really?"

MJ figures there's no point in lying. If she's actually going to get paid for this, he'll find out soon enough. "I won't be twenty-one until October."

"Ah," says Aaron. He mulls this over for a moment. "Well, show me what you've got, and we'll see about October then, alright?" MJ's face must convey some sort of surprise, because Aaron shrugs and says, "Hey, no matter how good you are, illegal is illegal. Even the pretty risks I can't afford to take."

For some reason MJ feels a lot better after he says this, uncrossing her arms and relaxing her jaw. As disappointing as it is not to make the extra cash until October, she supposes she'd rather know that this is, in fact, a legitimate operation. Not that she doesn't trust Harry's judgment—it's just that MJ has to keep herself guarded, because she's seen other girls in her position do some pretty stupid things in the past. And as much as MJ wants to be a performer, there is a very thick line between what she is and isn't willing to do.

Aaron pulls out a mini speaker. "Got any songs on your iPod?" he asks.

"Oh." All MJ has is one of those knockoff MP3 players she bought in Chinatown, and it's not even vaguely compatible with Apple products. "No, I, uh—so we're doing this right now? Auditioning?"

"Now's a good a time as any," says Aaron, chuckling as he scrutinizes his iPod to pick a song.

MJ glances over at Harry. "Are you … gonna leave, or what?" she says, wishing it didn't sound so self-conscious.

Harry raises his eyebrows. "Should I?"

"No, no, he can stay," says Aaron. He turns on the music—something boppy, something almost a childish-sounding, and MJ has to stop herself from groaning, because is this really what he plans to make her schtick? She'll be stuck doing the early shows for perverts on Thursday nights. In any case, Aaron is looking at her now, a challenge in his eyes. "If you can't audition in front of Harry, how do I know you won't get too nervous to perform onstage?"

MJ grits her teeth. "I don't _get_ stage fright."

"Then by all means."

For a moment MJ doesn't move, feeling the weight of their eyes on her. Somehow it is excruciatingly more difficult to do this while two people are watching, as opposed to a drunk crowd. MJ has always been the life of the party, but there is no party here—only the calculating, keen eyes of Aaron, and Harry's somewhat mocking stare. She swallows the nervous spit collecting in the back of her throat and remembers a dance routine she did with the cheer squad in high school. She can replicate it, she can alter it—it will fit the mood of the song, and if she lingers during just the right moves, if she flicks her mane of curls back and makes the right expressions, she might just be able to pull this off.

Slowly, deliberately, she sinks to the ground, her legs splayed into a perfect split. She looks up at Aaron coyly, but is already looking past him. As she pulls her legs back up into her torso and starts the slow roll of her bones back up to her feet, she has already transported, already willed him—all of this—not to exist.

* * *

"Damn, MJ. I had no _idea_. Could you do that in high school?"

MJ rolls her eyes on the walk back to Harry's place. The truth is, she's sure she could have. But certainly not living under her father's roof. "Feel like you've been cheated?" she asks playfully, feeling a little exhilarated by her success, by the satisfied look on Aaron's face when he told her he'd see her in a few months.

Harry guffaws. "A little bit, yeah. I mean—you can really work it."

She shrugs. "I had a lot of lessons when I was a kid."

"That kind of thing can't be taught," he says, adding an appreciative whistle that cuts through the night like an ambulance wail. She cringes and swats a hand on his chest to stop him, and he turns to her and says, "I don't know why you would want to be an actress when you can do _that_."

She stops short on the sidewalk. "Hey. I'm a _great_ actress."

Harry throws his hands up defensively. "I'm sure you are." When he sees how irritated she is he amends the statement and says, "Sorry, sorry. You are a great actress. I came to like, every single one of your shows in high school, remember? I still have _Seussical_-themed nightmares."

She laughs out loud. "Oh, god. That doesn't even count."

"You were still beautiful in it. Even with all those fucking feathers."

"You're full of shit, Osborn."

"Hey," he says, laughing, wrapping his fingers around her arm so she spins a little bit to face him. The gesture is light and playful, and he's staring at her with this almost drunk expression on his face, even though she knows he hasn't had a drop to drink. "You're always beautiful. You know that, right?"

Coming out of anyone else's mouth it would sound corny and stupid and make her want to gag, but Harry has always had this ease, this confidence about him, that makes everything he says feel like it's coming out of a Nicholas Sparks movie. She looks away from him, down at her pinched toes in her too-high heels. "Cut it out, Harry."

"There you go again. You can't ever let anyone say _one_ nice thing about you."

It takes MJ a moment to look back up at him. It's not that she is shy about people saying nice things about her—it's just that they're always the same things, and they're all kind of meaningless. She's had plenty of people tell her she's beautiful, but that doesn't mean that she is. She knows for a fact that even average looking girls, even ugly girls, get told that they're beautiful all the time, because at the end of the day a guy is going to say whatever he has to in order to get into a girl's pants, and girls will just say it to each other to hear it said back to them.

And even if MJ is beautiful, even if Harry isn't just lying through his teeth, what good is hearing that over and over? She's smart, too. Maybe not smart like Gwen and Peter, but _smart_ in her own way, street smart and capable and independent. She certainly was forced to grow up and face some ugly truths in life a lot faster than her peers. Why is it that nobody ever acknowledges her for that?

"Sure I can," she says breezily. She knows this is a Harry routine, too. All charming and suave, chipping at her ego by reminding her how self-conscious she can be. She will not be his cliché. "I'm just—"

Harry chooses that instant to brush a strand of hair back out of her eyes. The pitfall of these bangs is that it makes it all too easy for guys to stage tender moments like this. He's staring at her, his gaze hungry, his lips parting expectantly.

"Harry—"

He's leaning in, closing his eyes. _Shit_.

"Harry," she says, firmly, backing away from him.

His eyes snap open.

"I'm sorry," she says, pulling her purse in closer to her body. "I, uh—"

"No, no, I shouldn't have …" Harry mumbles. He scratches the back of his neck and glances at her, sheepish. "Shit. I shouldn't have done that."

It's not really his fault. They do this from time to time. Whenever neither of them is seeing someone they'll get drunk and make out and spend the night—oddly enough she's never actually _slept_ with Harry, because in some way that kind of defeats the whole point. Sometimes they're lonely. It doesn't mean they necessarily want each other, but they want someone, and normally MJ doesn't mind letting Harry fill that role.

Tonight is different. Tonight she's thinking about _not thinking about_ Peter, so of course he is the only thing on the forefront of her mind.

She shrugs. They're outside his building. "Let's just call it a night."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Hey, you got money for a taxi?"

"Yeah," she lies, because she wants him to go upstairs and leave her here, before she does something else astronomically stupid. She waves him off, stepping off the curb and crossing the street before he can say anything else. "Good night!"

He calls good night after her and she makes sure to turn the corner out of his sight before he can ask her upstairs or put her into a taxi himself. The truth is she likes walking around the city at night. It's calming, to be by herself for a little while, because she so rarely has the chance to be alone with her thoughts—between waitressing and classes and theater workshops and auditioning all over the damn city there's just no other time for her to mull things over.

And there are certainly plenty of things for her to mull over.

For instance, the fact that Gwen still hasn't called. MJ is actually starting to worry. It is very rare that she is incommunicado with Gwen for more than a day at a time, and now they're at about three. Not to mention that she just kind of catastrophically blew up the dynamic of their little group, one that she kind of carved into place as it was, by going steady with Peter in high school. Now that MJ has some time to breathe and think about something other than _oh my god I just had sex with my best friend_, the whole thing seems a little out of character.

Why _did _Gwen break up with Peter? They were all lovey-dovey soul-mate nobody-on-earth-can-possibly-understand-the-bond-w e-share like what, just last week, the last time she saw them out together? _I was going to ask her to marry me_, Peter had said. Well was that it? Had he actually proposed, and Gwen said no? Or did something else happen?

MJ blinks and realizes that she's walked at least three blocks out of her way, and she'll have to double back to take the street that leads her back to the dorms. "Great," she mutters to herself, turning on her heel. Of all the nights for her to get distracted it had to be the one where she looked like a twelve-year-old boy in a hooker Halloween costume.

In that instant she feels a shadow loom over her so suddenly and ominously that she startles, bracing herself like she is expecting something to fall from the sky.

"Whoa. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

MJ cracks an eye open, her entire body still seized, waiting for an impact that never came. She doesn't see who the voice belongs to and she whips around in search of it, already acutely aware that she is the only person in sight on this block, and she has very little trust in the humanity of New Yorkers to call the cops if they heard her screaming from their apartments above.

"Up here."

MJ's heart is hammering, aching in her skull, her stomach knotting with apprehension. She looks up toward the sound of the voice, not at all sure what she should expect—is someone calling up to her from a deck? Do people in this area of town even _have_ decks? Or is some lunatic sticking his head out the window and scaring the shit out of passerby for kicks?

Her eyes lock onto two bright white fixtures on a red mask and she gasps, doing a very poor job of hiding her surprise.

She's heard of Spider-Man plenty of times in the past few years. Hell, his picture is on the front of nearly every issue of _The Daily Bugle_—isn't that the only thing keeping Peter fed?—but it's an entirely different thing to see him up close. He is _scaling the building_ on his fingertips, his movements impossibly lithe and effortless, his head cocked to the side in consideration of her, as if she is the mystery when he's the wack-o fighting crime in a wetsuit.

"Um—hello," she manages.

"Hey there. Any reason why you're walking out here by yourself this late at night?"

For a moment she is rooted to the spot, staring at him. He sounds so oddly casual about this whole thing, like he already knows her, like this is an appropriate question to ask a stranger in the dead of night while using superpowers to glue himself to a brick building several feet over her head.

"Let me get this straight," she says, once she has recovered herself. "Did the great Spider-Man really just stop on his nightly rounds to lecture me about my curfew?"

If she's hoping to embarrass him, she is disappointed: "Yes, I am. I'm guessing you weren't aware that you were being followed just now?"

His voice is so … _young_. She supposes that's the most unexpected part of this encounter. It's easy to imagine Spider-Man as somebody who is full-grown, fully-formed, able to take on the burden of whatever responsibilities come with wearing that mask. But right now he sounds like he is barely any older than she is.

It makes it a little bit easier to talk to him. "Now I am," she says, gesturing at him.

He sounds defensive. "Not by me. Some creep."

"There's always some creep," MJ says, waving him off. The truth is, she had no idea, but she's not going to let this guy think he can pull the whole damsel-in-distress routine on her. She doesn't like the idea of owing anybody anything. "I can defend myself, thank you."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to … _not_ walk around by yourself at one in the morning?"

She stiffens. "Don't you have like, a hundred more important things you could be doing right now? This is my street, anyway."

"No, it's not."

Up until this point she has done a fairly decent job at seeming unfazed by this whole encounter, but this is one response she cannot brush off. "Excuse me?"

Spider-Man is at once uncharacteristically silent.

"Are you saying you _know where I live?_"

"This isn't exactly the first time you've done this—"

"And you're worried about _other_ creeps?"

She can practically feel him blushing through the mask. "I'm not going to apologize," he says, a bizarre mix of sheepish and indignant.

She tilts her head at him. She's feeling bold, bolder than usual, now that she feels like she has the upper hand on this conversation. "Who are you, anyway?"

He slings a web, darting across a building to follow her. "I'm Spider-Man," he says, cheekily.

She rolls her eyes.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me your name?" he asks, and if she isn't mistaken, there is a vague flirtatious undertone to the question. A part of her feels flattered—of all the thousands of women in the city Spider-Man could stop and chat with, what are the odds it would be _her_—but a part of her feels nervous, even anxious, in a way that she never feels around guys whose faces she can actually see.

She isn't going to tell him, but then she does: "I'm MJ."

"MJ?"

"Just MJ," she confirms, and the words seem to speak some higher truth she doesn't want to face. Just MJ. Nothing special. Overlooked at auditions, passed on by boys like Peter Parker, just sort of drifting through the universe without note or promise. She isn't famous. She isn't important. She's _just MJ_.

And there's no reason for Spider-Man to be talking to her, no reason for him to care about her at all.

She glances up at him, trying to look unaffected, trying to look like a girl who really is worth his attention. But his gaze is looking past her, toward the door that leads up to her dorm. She feels an unexpected cautionary tingle in her skin.

"Well, just MJ," says Spider-Man, and she can tell by his posture that he is poised to leave. "This looks like your stop."

"That's certifiably creepy," she says lightly, reaching for her keys in her purse. "But thanks, I guess, for—"

When she looks back up, he's already gone.


End file.
